Microsoft Active Directory vs OneLogin by One Identity comparison

Microsoft Active Directory vs. OneLogin by One Identity

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Active Directory

Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Active Directory Management (6th)

OneLogin by One Identity

Ranking in Single Sign-On (SSO)

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

User Provisioning Software (6th), Identity Management (IM) (12th), Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) (IAMaaS) (10th), Access Management (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Single Sign-On (SSO) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Active Directory is 2.9%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OneLogin by One Identity is 2.4%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Featured Reviews

Rajitha Abhisheka

Senior Systems Engineer at Virtual IT Group - Australia

A solution that easily merges with cloud-based ADs and provides superior data security

The interface for logs should be user-friendly and allow for enhanced filtering to drill down to incidents. It is time consuming to get a clear picture and review deviations in conditional policies because you have to check each and every log to find information on malicious attacks, a compromised end-user's account, or phishing emails. The logs for sign-ins and auditing should be available for more than a 30-90 day window. Most logs are displayed in UTC but it would be helpful to include time conversions for tenant regions. Currently, we must do time conversions manually before we contact users to share information and troubleshoot issues.

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Pete Snell

IT Director at Florida State College at Jacksonivlle

Staff and students can now reset their passwords using their enrolled two-factor device as the authentication mechanism

We've been a OneLogin customer for several years now. While I like the platform, there have been some challenges. A great example is the amount of work needed with that webhook for the enrollment user experience. This functionality is native to some competing products. That's one area where we've leaned on our account rep over the years. They shouldn't rely on the customer to make this experience better. This is one feature request that hasn't been implemented yet. At the same time, they've implemented other features we've requested. One is the ability to use a personal email address as a factor. Initially, they didn't have that. We pushed hard on our account team for about two years before it was finally released. It's a give-and-take. Some of the product's features aren't perfect, but we've had some success pushing fixes to the development team that needs to happen. They've done a decent job. However, there are some fixes that they don't have an interest in. A lot of what I described was before OneLogin was acquired by Quest/One Identity. Things have changed. It doesn't feel like they're driving the product as OneLogin was. It may be because it's a new product to them, and they're still trying to get the lay of the land, process feature requests, etc., but it's not moving as fast as before. We've been experiencing some pain points since the acquisition. For example, there have been some outages we didn't see previously, which are a big topic with my executive team. You have hundreds of applications relying on this service for login. If the service is unavailable, nobody can log into these applications. The issues have high visibility. It's gotten better, but it's still there. It raises questions about whether One Identity can support the platform they've acquired. How are they enhancing the product? And how are they supporting the product and the service in the future? Those are two essential questions. There are also lots of nice-to-haves, but that's the case with any product.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The most valuable features of Microsoft Active Directory are the management of user and group policies."

"The ability for a single sign-on for applications."

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Active Directory is the group policies."

"The most valuable features are it is easy to use, manage, create a repository, and create the OM."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is an easy-to-use tool."

"The scalability of the solution is high...The initial setup of the solution is easy, and I would rate it an eight or nine out of ten on a scale of one to ten, where one being difficult and ten being easy."

"Technical support is helpful."

"The most valuable feature is the configured appliance system in Hypervisor."

More Microsoft Active Directory pros

"The directory integration and SCIM provisioning are probably the best features compared to competitors."

"When it comes to access management, the solution's single pane of glass is extremely important. The single pane of glass for access management enables collaborative work between IT and security. We have access to certain applications that require device trust. Based on the role, we can access those applications through OneLogin Desktop."

"It's super useful to have a single pane of glass when it comes to access management."

"Documentation."

"Ease of integration with AD."

"The solution's ability to save and manage of all my passwords is great."

"The solution allows the user to search logs based on a specific time."

"Simplicity is the most valuable part of OneLogin."

More OneLogin by One Identity pros

Cons

"I have encountered a few stability issues."

"Active Directory's user experience is a little dated. Group policy management should be more customizable."

"The solution needs to be simplified to navigate."

"Microsoft Active Directory restricts most of the features our company's employees want to use since they are involved in research and development activities."

"The challenges everyone now has in mind is how to really migrate fully to the cloud. Many companies face both technical and cost-related challenges when moving from on-premise Active Directory to Microsoft Intra."

"It could be more stable."

"There has been a change in the layout of the user information. Previously, I had to go to properties to view the information, but now it is displayed directly below the search results. It takes some time to get used to."

"I did not have a good experience with the product's tech support. First-level support takes a lot of time since they ask many questions."

More Microsoft Active Directory cons

"This product doesn't necessarily provide us with all of the functionality that we need, such as being able to share passwords with external users."

"I would like better reporting from SmartFactor Authentication when a user is not able to sign in due to a new location, new IP, new device, et cetera."

"We've been experiencing some pain points since the acquisition. For example, there have been some outages we didn't see previously, which are a big topic with my executive team. You have hundreds of applications relying on this service for login. If the service is unavailable, nobody can log into these applications."

"The uptime has not been great recently, with some outages lasting six, seven, or eight hours."

"The solution keeps going down for many hours, which impacts the entire company. You can't access any applications. OneLogin Desktop has a huge problem where it locks your computers and you need to reset the whole computer, which is pretty insane."

"They have downtime twice a year or once in six months. During the downtime, the SSO page did not come up. When users wanted to get to their email, they were redirected to the OneLogin page, but the page did not come up, and MFA and logins failed. It completely crippled us."

"OneLogin needs to increase the number of connectors available out of the box to connect to the different endpoints. The number of out-of-box connectors should be increased."

"OneLogin offers a Virtual LDAP feature that we utilize, although it differs slightly from traditional LDAP servers."

More OneLogin by One Identity cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have to purchase a license for the solution."

"It's not overly expensive. It's considered a base function by Microsoft."

"I'm unsure about the cost of the solution, as I was never involved in that aspect. However, I don't think it would be expensive. It might be average, around four or five out of ten."

"The price of Microsoft Active Directory could improve. We pay annually for the solution."

"Its price is reasonable."

"Active Directory is an expensive solution, primarily due to Microsoft's licensing model. This licensing approach includes paying for server licenses as well as for each computer that connects to it. However, when working with the Azure cloud, there is no cost for the server. This is profitable and one of the main reasons why Azure Cloud and other cloud-based solutions are being used more."

"The product's premium support services are expensive."

"Active Directory is built-in into Microsoft Windows 10. I'm not an administrator and would not be involved in purchasing decisions for new versions of the software. I have only used the client portion of it, I do not know if there is a cost to using the solution."

More Microsoft Active Directory pricing and cost advice

"OneLogin's pricing, from the perspective of the education sector, seems quite reasonable for the value it delivers."

"It was cheap in the beginning, and then it became very expensive. We were initially charged $2 per user per month, which was fine, but by the second year, they increased it to $5 per user. That became very expensive for us because we had about 1,500 users. At $2 per user, it comes out to be $3,000 a month, which is $36,000 a year. If we move to $5 per user, it comes out to be $7,500 a month. That made its cost so high. That is why we removed the product because the cost was high."

"While I wish OneLogin's pricing was more affordable, their licensing model, which is based on per user, is acceptable."

"We were happy with the price we got when we signed up, but I don't know what will happen when the time comes to renew because it is a different company now. We haven't seen any pricing models or had that discussion yet. My renewal is a year and a half away. It's worth what we're paying for it. There's no way we could provide the level of service for cheaper or try to do the same in-house."

"The pricing for OneLogin seems to be okay. The pricing and licensing are affordable. If you'd consider OneLogin to be expensive, it's worth it."

"The pricing and licensing are reasonable. It is much cheaper than other products."

"The price of the licensing is fine."

"Surprisingly expensive given the price of on-premise solutions."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

25%

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Active Directory?

The solution is easy to install and has good reliability.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Active Directory?

Technology is evolving. AI is offering solutions. However, short-term fixes are like band-aids.

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Active Directory?

I utilize it in almost every scenario. I use the Hazer database and meet daily needs across every industry, every time.

What do you like most about OneLogin by One Identity?

OneLogin is efficient.

What needs improvement with OneLogin by One Identity?

There have been some outages over the years. The uptime has not been great recently, with some outages lasting six, seven, or eight hours. Improvement in the stability of the infrastructure would b...

What is your primary use case for OneLogin by One Identity?

We use OneLogin by One Identity to provide SAML authentication and single sign-on for all of our SaaS apps.

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Product Reports

Microsoft Active Directory

Download Microsoft Active Directory product report

OneLogin by One Identity

Download OneLogin by One Identity product report

Also Known As

No data available

OneLogin, OneLogin Workforce Identity

Overview

Active Directory stores information about objects on the network and makes this information easy for administrators and users to find and use. Active Directory uses a structured data store as the basis for a logical, hierarchical organization of directory information.

This data store, also known as the directory, contains information about Active Directory objects. These objects typically include shared resources such as servers, volumes, printers, and the network user and computer accounts.

Security is integrated with Active Directory through logon authentication and access control to objects in the directory. With a single network logon, administrators can manage directory data and organization throughout their network, and authorized network users can access resources anywhere on the network. Policy-based administration eases the management of even the most complex network.

Microsoft

OneLogin by One Identity is a cloud-based access management solution for the modern enterprise. It delivers secure access for every user, every app and every device to meet an organization’s Workforce and Customer and Identity and Access Management (CIAM) needs.

OneLogin provides secure single sign-on, multi-factor authentication (supporting a wide array of passwordless authentication factors), adaptive authentication, desktop-level MFA, directory integration with AD, LDAP, G Suite and other external directories, identity lifecycle management and much more. OneLogin advanced authentication capabilities provide multi-layer, context aware and risk-based protection, minimizing the most common attacks and resulting in increased security, a frictionless user experience, and compliance with regulatory requirements. Furthermore, OneLogin’s user-friendly interface and streamlined design make it easy for end users and IT administrators to navigate the platform and remain productive.

One Identity

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

OneLogin has thousands of customers across multiple industries and from around the globe such as Uber, Airbnb, Noom, Petco, Sony, Lucky Brand, Tesco, Airbus, Japan Airlines, Aetna, Compass, Kaplan, Susan G. Komen, AAA and PennyMac.

Microsoft Active Directory vs. OneLogin by One Identity